What Are You Doing Right Now
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@Dashrender said:
I am specifically not on call 24x7. If my boss texts/emails me after 5 PM she has no expectation that I will receive/respond to those things until 7 AM the next business day. In my case (Sorry Scott - calling is the emergency contact method for everyone else I know, except you - and yes that may include 2-5 phone numbers) calling is the emergency communication.
You are again, mixing up "wrong" with "everyone does it." I never claim that the majority do smart things, I, in fact, constantly state that comparing the "majority" to "good practice" is nearly always wrong because the majority don't think about anything and are not smart. Remember the average business fails, the average person can't do basic math, etc. That most people use the phone should be the red flag that that's not smart but what makes some business the most money or is just lazy or is intended to fail, etc.
Calling isn't reliable or appropriate. It is, quite frankly, rude. It's an interruption to someone when they are not getting paid when it is not only not needed, it is less useful. Why do most people accept this or do this to other people? No idea. But the fact that most people do supports what I said, it is no way whatsoever disputes it.
And we are NOT talking about an emergency here. That's a different issue. In an emergency you should email first. Call as a follow up if you need. But as I always say... if you need details, you need email. A call in a true emergency is fine, once details have been sent. But we are not talking about an emergency here at all.
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@DustinB3403 said:
If you need to get a hold of me call, I live in the modern world, and have access to cell service 99.99999% of the time.
No, you live in Rochester where everyone I know complains that they have no cell service. You actually live in the worst region I've seen, in the entire world, for cell service. Literally, I kid you not. I know of one uninhabited high mountain valley in central Nicaragua without a single house that for a one mile stretch is comparable. That's the one and only place in 21 countries that I've found to equate to how bad your region's service is.
I have no service in a room. I have a thousand times better service around the house than you can get in western NY.
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About to go home for the weekend! Woooooo
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Good Morning ML
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
If you need to get a hold of me call, I live in the modern world, and have access to cell service 99.99999% of the time.
No, you live in Rochester where everyone I know complains that they have no cell service. You actually live in the worst region I've seen, in the entire world, for cell service. Literally, I kid you not. I know of one uninhabited high mountain valley in central Nicaragua without a single house that for a one mile stretch is comparable. That's the one and only place in 21 countries that I've found to equate to how bad your region's service is.
I have no service in a room. I have a thousand times better service around the house than you can get in western NY.
I was going to say... upstate NY is notorious for have some of the worst cell coverage and of what is here some of the oldest and worst infrastructure.
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@Dashrender said:
I suppose I could set my device to ring when I get a text message, not sure though if I can set text messages to continue to ring until I actually look at them though - or email notices (But, damn, can you imagine having your phone ring all the bloody time until you actually look at incoming email?)
You can't do that with your phone either. It rings only as long as they sit on the phone - not something you can do for hours during an emergency. A phone call requires the caller to sit and wait hoping that you pick up, requires you to drop what you are doing and make it to the phone, requires the phone to be working, requires the service to be working and requires all of those things to happen in the same thirty second interval and if they don't the communications doesn't happen.
And does this mean that you believe that all people should keep phones on during movies, plays, meetings, etc.? Or do you feel that IT people cannot attend those things? How do you combine situations where you cannot be interrupted with a belief that you should always be able to be interrupted?
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@scottalanmiller I completely understand the situation here, as this clearly isn't an emergency.
But the normal communication methods tried first would be an email or text. If there is no response a follow up call. I for one wake up (on average) 1 hour before I'm due into work.
So to have a text that I'm not looking for sitting on my phone, saying "hey can you be the early guy" is not a notification to me to update my alarm.
I happened to wake up early enough to make it in, but a call would have absolutely been the appropriate thing after there was no response via Text after a few minutes.
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@coliver said:
I was going to say... upstate NY is notorious for have some of the worst cell coverage and of what is here some of the oldest and worst infrastructure.
Yup, being from upstate NY is what taught me without a doubt that any concept of thinking that you can rely on calls or texts is crazy. Even the land lines up there aren't reliable.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller I completely understand the situation here, as this clearly isn't an emergency.
But the normal communication methods tried first would be an email or text. If there is no response a follow up call. I for one wake up (on average) 1 hour before I'm due into work.
So to have a text that I'm not looking for sitting on my phone, saying "hey can you be the early guy" is not a notification to me to update my alarm.
I happened to wake up early enough to make it in, but a call would have absolutely been the appropriate thing after there was no response via Text after a few minutes.
A call as a follow up is different than a call instead of sending the info. Those are very different concepts.
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@DustinB3403 said:
That's my take as well (everyone besides Scott and MQ) text or email is fine, if you get a response, but I'll be damned if I'm "expected" to listen for it.
If you need to get a hold of me call, I live in the modern world, and have access to cell service 99.99999% of the time.
LOL - you must never fly. I have cell service way below 99% of the time because of things like flying, and being in basements with no service, etc... but I also generally don't have any other service at those times either.
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@Dashrender said:
@DustinB3403 said:
That's my take as well (everyone besides Scott and MQ) text or email is fine, if you get a response, but I'll be damned if I'm "expected" to listen for it.
If you need to get a hold of me call, I live in the modern world, and have access to cell service 99.99999% of the time.
LOL - you must never fly. I have cell service way below 99% of the time because of things like flying, and being in basements with no service, etc... but I also generally don't have any other service at those times either.
Or living in any even slightly rural part of upstate NY.
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@scottalanmiller and @coliver try calling me any time you want, my phone will ring.
I haven't had a cell phone issue in a very long time.
The last outage where I had no cell service (my primary means of communication) was over 1.2 years ago. Rochester to Buffalo was without service.
And that's been the only time other than when the tri-state area lost power.
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@Dashrender said:
LOL - you must never fly. I have cell service way below 99% of the time because of things like flying, and being in basements with no service, etc... but I also generally don't have any other service at those times either.
Great examples. I get email in airports, on planes, on ferries, but not calls or texts. Amtrak too, they have wifi that is more reliable than the cell service (just because of the speed of the trains.)
I get wifi in basements and stuff when I own the home. Only have issues with that when we rent houses and they have equipment problems.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller and @coliver try calling me any time you want, my phone will ring.
I haven't had a cell phone issue in a very long time.
Do you never drive? You can't go anywhere around Rochester without the calls dropping. Even Dallas has no Verizon coverage in the middle of the city.
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I drive constantly, and haven't experienced any issues.
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When I attended RIT and commuted I would generally lose signal around the Strong Memorial Hospital. All signal not just data. Couldn't be on a call when I was commuting or it would drop.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I drive constantly, and haven't experienced any issues.
Is that because you don't know that you miss calls or you are on calls while driving? I've had a lot of Android users tell me they don't have problems with calls and then it turns out that they just didn't check that they were missing them, for example.
Everyone I talk to in Rochester complains about how they can't get calls still. It's a very current issue.
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I have bluetooth and haven't had any dropped calls.
Maybe I'm the exception but my service has been more the good. What does the OS matter of the phone?
It would be the carrier that has the issue.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I suppose I could set my device to ring when I get a text message, not sure though if I can set text messages to continue to ring until I actually look at them though - or email notices (But, damn, can you imagine having your phone ring all the bloody time until you actually look at incoming email?)
You can't do that with your phone either. It rings only as long as they sit on the phone - not something you can do for hours during an emergency. A phone call requires the caller to sit and wait hoping that you pick up, requires you to drop what you are doing and make it to the phone, requires the phone to be working, requires the service to be working and requires all of those things to happen in the same thirty second interval and if they don't the communications doesn't happen.
But the point I'm making is that that caller then knows that you are unreachable - unavailable and is now forced to move onto the next person or simply deal with the situation on their own. This is a social norm.
And does this mean that you believe that all people should keep phones on during movies, plays, meetings, etc.? Or do you feel that IT people cannot attend those things? How do you combine situations where you cannot be interrupted with a belief that you should always be able to be interrupted?
I feel that if that IT person needs to be reachable 24x7 with no exceptions, then yes, they can't do those things.
Do you believe that if you are on call 24x7 and expected to drop whatever you are doing that you should be in a movie theater reading email that's flowing into your phone? If that was the case, I would get no sleep at all. Nearly not an hour goes by that an email doesn't trickle into my inbox, do you feel that I should be reading those within mins of their arrival?
Also email and texts are not guaranteed delivery mechanisms. The sender has no idea when you will receive either. It frustrates the shit out of me when someone gets pissy that I didn't respond to a text message in near real time, or an email for that matter. Sure 99% or more of the time they are near instantly delivered, but those times when you're away from a computer and don't have service - you don't get jack and now you're the bad guy for not responding immediately.
If Dustin's boss really expected Dustin to go to work early, he should have continued communication attempts until he received confirmation that Dustin would be going in early. A simple text asking/telling him to do so and no confirmation is crap.
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Don't get me stated on cell availability around here (Western NY). Buffalo/Rochester area is the worst, regardless of carrier or technology. 4G? I'm lucky if I can get CDMA 1X in my building, and I"m only a mile from a tower! Now, in the "boonies" I would expect that but not in a relative major suburban area. I've literally gone up into less populated areas of New England or the middle of Pennsylvania expecting little to no service, and get not just 4G, but full on XLTE with measured 20 Mbit down!
